Final day, much too soon

So I mentioned yesterday how I felt like I was coming down with a cold? My nose was running all day from morning until bedtime. And now how many times have I had to do that today? Try zero. Bodies can be weird things, but I'm certainly not unhappy about it.

Right now I'm on the plane heading home. I went out to the beach for a while and picked up some pretty shells and then saw my daughter off to the airport. Then I wrote report cards (yes, I did work there. In fact, I carried large piles of tests down in my carry-on bag, which stayed in the bag untouched for the duration of the trip) until it was time for us to head to our final game, where we saw the Phillies play the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This game was fun-filled and action packed, and the first 2 innings took as long as 6 innings the night before. We left after 2 hours and 4 innings, to give you an idea. But we were sitting in the shade and perfectly comfortable, and there was lots going on.

Spring training games are funny in that they're not really games, they're practice, so it always seems weird when they try to pump up the crowd by playing the charge theme or worse yet, that grating artificial clapping sound that is more like some kind of grinding metal than anything else. During actual games, people clap along with that stuff, but most people don't care who wins spring training games. They cheer for good plays and when their team scores runs, but beyond that they are just hanging out, drinking something cool and having a snack. It's very relaxed compared to a game that "counts."

So off we went to the airport and headed home. I continued my work and tried to think about how to get through the next two weeks before spring break.

Second day in Clearwater (Sorry, thought I'd posted this yesterday)

This morning I went into Starbucks to get a cup of coffee before heading out for my long walk. It was busy, and they had people at 2 registers and a 3rd just taking orders. The third guy took the person in front of me, who ordered one of those silly sugary things they make, and he asked what her name was. "Stephanie," she replied, to which he replied, "With an f or a ph?" She said it was ph, and I was thinking why are you bothering to ask that question when a cashier asked for my order and when I told him my name was Frank, he said, with a totally straight face, "Is that with an f or a ph?" And then he cracked up and said "I couldn't help it."

So on that note, I set off toward Sand Key, a small island just south of Clearwater Beach. I've done this walk before and there's not much there, but the bridge over the bay has great views of St. Petersburg on one side and Clearwater Beach on the other. I don't have any pictures to share because I've done that before on previous walks.

Sand Key is sort of an odd name for a place that has no more or less sand than anything else around here. Everything here is made of sand. They wouldn't call the bay Water Bay. Or would they? The state beach is beautiful though, with bright white sand and an open view of the water. What it does not have, which I couldn't help noticing because of some personal connection to the matter, is any place to go to the bathroom. There's a vast beach with a huge parking lot and the one bathhouse is closed and there's nothing else in sight. So I hereby recommend this beach for short visits when you are slightly dehydrated.

The walk is very nice and takes me by everything on the south end of the island. There's a lot of hotel construction going on. Someone was wondering if that meant there were casinos coming, but there was no particular sign of that. There certainly has been a lack of upscale properties, and I think that niche is at the edge of getting much more populated. Maybe that means next year there will be more choice and better prices.

I've not been able to completely let go of everything, but a long walk and quiet contemplation was good for me. I'm okay all things considered, aside from feeling like I'm getting a cold. My body pretty consistently does this- manages to stay healthy throughout any kind of difficulty and then as soon as things get better it rebels. That's how I ended up with shingles, but this is just a cold.

Once back at the hotel I had breakfast and we went to the beach. It's a very nice beach, as I've mentioned before. We got some chairs and an umbrella and did the beach thing. I sat in the sun and the ladies were under the umbrella. We all read books and were ably assisted by Jimmy from Englewood, NJ, who told us all about his family and how he came to be in Clearwater and also helped with the umbrella. You can't enjoy an adult beverage on most of the beach, but on this one spot by our hotel you can, and they take advantage of it with a mobile bar called Tommy's Tiki Ranger. I had a nice cold beer and my daughter had a combo margarita/piña colada, which is as good as it sounds. After a few hours it was time to get cleaned up and head down to the jauntily named Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota to see the Baltimore Orioles play the Minnesota Twins.

The drive down, which normally takes around an hour and a half at most, took almost two hours and was pretty unpleasant, but eventually we made it and got a parking space right across the street from the stadium. I'd been there before and the one thing I remembered was how friendly everyone was there. And I remembered correctly. Every single person working there was incredibly pleasant and friendly, and the vendors were attentive and funny ("Get your water here, straight from the bottom of the well to your lips.") and the whole atmosphere could not have been nicer. The game went quickly and had patches of action, ranging from home runs to someone walking and eventually scoring without another hit by virtue of 2 wild pitches and a fly ball.

He hit a home run, but it's disappointing that his name is pronounced "scope" and not "shoop."

Fortunately, the trip home was much shorter, and back in the hotel room I learned that, while it is not ideal or easy to cut up and de-seed a pepper with a teaspoon, it is possible. Sort of wish I'd done a video in retrospect; I was pretty impressed with myself if you must know.

So that's a day. Nothing incredible, just a mostly pleasant, uneventful day. Home tomorrow, but that's another story.

A day away

Anybody who has spent any time with me recently would know that these past few weeks have not been the easiest, which means here that within my sphere of people there have been some huge swings of emotion. Lots of good things, but also some pretty difficult stuff to deal with. Most of it didn't happen to me, but to people I care about, which for me is usually worse. Too much drama, lots of work, a good-sized portion of stress, and not enough sleep. So saying I needed a break was a pretty dramatic understatement.

As it turned out, this was a long-planned weekend in Clearwater Beach with my wife and one daughter, which could not have been more right place at the right time. The day of departure completely crazy. Honestly, I can't believe that I managed to get everything done that I did, from making up and giving tests to meetings to teaching a class while eating a Wawa tuna wrap to pretty much every other thing I ever do during a school day all packed in from about 6 AM until 1:30 when I headed home. And at least it seems that I didn't seriously screw anything up in the process.

So we got to the airport just at the right time for our flight, and got into Tampa airport and over to Clearwater earlier than expected. We're staying at the Hilton here, which is a first time for me. It's the 6th different hotel I've used on these trips and I'm pretty happy with the choice.

I usually use Tripadvisor as a primary source for hotel searches, and had always avoided this place, in spite of its almost perfect location, because everyone said it felt old and a little run down. But this year all the reviews said things about "newly renovated," so I decided to give it a try. It's definitely had a going over, and more of it is good than not. The room is good-sized and nicely furnished, if you're into hotel furniture. Hotels are strange things, if you think about it, and how they put rooms together often makes me think about the meetings involved in the planning. Why did they make this or that particular choice? Why is there something like this out here rather than behind the desk where it wouldn't be seen?

The bed is comfortable and there's a refrigerator rather than a minibar, which is always a plus. They have a small fitness center, though the hotel guide says it's on the 3rd floor, which it is not. I ended up finding it by accident looking for the lobby. The only really confounding thing is the bathroom. It's clear that the designers found the space problematic, because there are some quirks. The sink is very stylish and looks good when you are standing over it, but the faucet is on the side rather than in back, which requires more thought from the user than would be ideal to figure out how to get hot or cold water. And as nice as it looks up above you can see the entire plumbing system down below, which is just odd.

In the hundred or so hotel reviews I've written, I've never had occasion to mention the view from the toilet, because that just seems icky for some reason, even though I suspect that most if not all of the people reading this have sat on a toilet at one time or another. Anyway, the underside of the sink is what you see when you're sitting there. It's nice and new and shiny. but not exactly slick. And what you do not see is the toilet paper, or bath tissue as the labels read but nobody, and I mean nobody, ever says or even thinks. That's because it's behind you and hidden in a kind of cubby.

It's also facing away from you, so if you can find it you have to reach back to get at it. Hopefully I won't tear a rotator cuff trying to get at it. And I can't not mention the fact that the toilet itself is several inches lower than normal, which is far more disconcerting than one would think. Any why doesn't anyone understand that people in hotels want to be able to find and use the bathroom during the night without having to leave the bright fluorescent light on? Dimmer switch? Night light? Too difficult apparently.

But at least they designed crown moulding to accommodate the sprinkler...

But enough about that. We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant because it was easy. I got 8 hours of sleep, which is about the total I'd had the previous two nights combined. And by the time I had walked on the beach for a little while I felt so much better that I couldn't believe it. The beach here is spectacular- a wide swath of powdery white sand (Ronnie described it as feeling like walking on flour) with a hard packed part down by the water that's ideal for walking. 

It was so nice that I ended up walking 5 miles all told, and it was rejuvenating. Got back to the hotel and ate something and then we went to a ballgame at the jauntily named Florida Auto Exchange Stadium. Saw some nice practice baseball and I had a blueberry wheat beer with floated frozen blueberries, a first for me.

Back at the hotel I napped for a bit and then worked out. After a shower we walked up to Frenchy's Rockaway Grill, one of my favorite spots here. Right on the beach and totally casual, no reservations, so we got on the list knowing we'd have to wait an hour and then walked onto the beach to watch the sunset. Sunsets are a thing in Clearwater. Seeing the sun disappear into the Gulf of Mexico can be a real highlight if you catch a good one, which we did tonight.

Don't have more pictures because I was too busy watching it to be dealing with a camera. It looked like the sun was getting squashed down into the water- it almost seemed oval by the time it was halfway over the horizon. When it finally slipped below the edge the hundreds of people on the beach applauded. And hopefully it will rise and set again tomorrow as well. We walked back to the restaurant and waited a few minutes before our table came up.

The food at Frenchy's is good, but what really struck me was how happy everyone there was. Lots of laughing and friendly conversation. The whole day was like that. At one point we were going down to the ground floor and the elevator stopped at the lobby level, which is one flight up. The other people in the elevator apologized for having pushed the wrong button, and I said that considering that was probably the worst thing that had happened to me all day, that it must have been a pretty good day.

Tomorrow is a beach day- baseball at night. It's supposed to be 81 degrees and sunny, so hopefully we can keep the winning streak going. I've had a few occasions in my life where I really really needed a break and this was one of them. I feel blessed, whatever that means, that it's worked out as well as it has so far.